Patrick Christys: Tony Blair does not care about Britain

Tony Blair, the man who simply cannot be flushed, has been named in the Pandora Papers, which appear to show that he’s been doing his best to pay as little tax as possible. That’s classic Tony though, isn’t it?

The man hiked taxes for you and I during his first terms as PM, but is happy to spend some time on Mick Jagger’s yacht talking to his accountant about how little money he can get away with paying back into the UK economy.

Reports suggest that Blair saved around £300,000 when he and Cherie became the owners of a £6.5m office building in 2017 by acquiring a British Virgin Islands (BVI) company controlled by the family of Zayed bin Rashid Alzayani, Bahrain’s current minister for industry, commerce and tourism.

This kind of thing is just par for the course for Blair. I can’t believe we still hear from this guy. I can’t believe anyone listens to him. I can’t believe he shows his face in public and I can’t understand how he sleeps at night, and not just because he’s next to Cherie.

Tony Blair left his mark on Britain, but unfortunately that mark should have the word skid before it. Education, Education, Education. Massive debt, massive debt, massive debt. He’s the reason everyone feels like they have to go to University and get a Desmond Tutu in something pointless, which simultaneously trapping themselves in a never ending cycle of student debt that they’ll be saddled with for the rest of their lives.

He’s responsible for mass immigration into the UK – under old Tony net migration averaged 200,000 per year between 1997 and 2010 – five times higher than under the previous government.

So by definition Blair is personally responsible for a lot of the issues we have in society today, caused by massive, rapid population growth – NHS waiting times, class sizes in schools going through the roof, talking of rooves – there’s a housing crisis as well. Cheers, Tony.

Then of course, there’s the war isn’t there. Which is massive – an estimated half a million people died as a result of our invasion of Iraq, which was done to get rid of their weapons of mass destruction, which didn’t exist.

People can make their own minds up about whether or not Blair knew there were no WMDs, whether or not he and Alastair Campbell deliberately sexed up false intelligence in the run up to the war, and whether or not someone at The Hague may want to have a word with them both – I have my own views on those issues.

The other reason we supposedly went to war in Iraq was to bring peace and democracy to that part of the world and, of course, make us safer at home. Well how’s that worked out? Blair kick started a death spiral in the middle east, it’s got more terror organisations than I’ve had hot dinners and I think the irony is that Saddam Hussein is probably more popular than Blair with the people of Baghdad.

Under former prime minister Tony Blair, net migration averaged 200,000 per year between 1997 and 2010
Victoria Jones

Would ISIS be the group they are today if it wasn’t our invasion of Iraq. Maybe, but I think not. The invasion of Iraq has been a direct cause of many terror attacks committed in the UK – who has blood on their hands there? If Blair had his way, our currency would currently be the Euro and we’d be nothing more than a Brussels satellite state – which would have been alright for Tony, because obviously he’d have been in charge of Europe.

He was so desperate to be in charge of the EU that he broker a deal with our European friends that he increased the amount of money we gave to Brussels by 63%. Look, I think the guy’s an absolute wrong’un, and his wife’s pretty questionable as well.

Cherie has a track record of representing some pretty dodgy people, like Abdullah Yameen, former leader of the Maldives, who is not exactly known for standing up for people’s human rights.

I’m not surprised Blair didn’t want to pay £300k in tax, because I don’t think Blair actually cares about Britain, I think the only things he cares about are himself, money, power and powerful people.